Which one of these is not like the others...

All afternoon yesterday, turbine #3 seemed to be slightly out of whack and vibrating at low wind speeds. Didn't get a break in the breeze all day in order to lower it down to investigate the problem. So this morning I notice first thing that something was amiss on the wind farm. The cotter pin holding the hub on must have broken and the blades spun the hub off. Found the hub with blades right next to the turbine - 4 of 6 blades damaged as well as a bent hub. Lowered the turbine and removed the blades from the hub. Hope to get it repaired and back up in about a week. The turbine will be resting comfortably in the down position till then.

Made an appointment to check out some shipping containers in Ft. Stockton tomorrow. Will do my major shopping expedition in Alpine on the way home. Filled the afternoon and two loads in my truck tank with water from my friend Charley's place. He has two 3000 gallon tanks holding about 4500 gallons of rainwater that's just sitting there. A much quicker trip than going down to Terlingua and it's free water. ( thanks Charley!) In two trips, I transferred a total of 200 gallons back home - split between my two 3000 gallon water tanks. That's 835 pounds in each tank now - outta hold them in place if we get another wind storm before I can get them filled with Field Lab rainwater. Here are some purdy flowers I saw at Charley's....springtime in February.

Wednesday Morning Update: The Field Lab on NPR - Thursday, Feb 19th. 10-11AM and 6-7PM Central Time. http://www.marfapublicradio.org/